Clouds

I love living where there are a lot of open spaces, because I love to see the amazing sky.  The cloud formations I see on the way to and from work, or just driving out and about, completely blow my mind sometimes. When the weather changes, though, and there is a seemingly impenetrable layer of clouds blocking the sun, it changes everything.  People become gloomy, even surly, and grumble about where our sunny days went. 

For the last few weeks, I have felt as if I were living under an oppressive cloud cover.  Circumstances in my life have been such that sometimes it even felt I couldn't breathe.  Certain things would set me on a downward spiral, wondering when I would hit bottom, and then wishing I would, because the slide itself was so scary.  You probably know the feeling - the tightness in the chest, the fog over the thoughts, the difficulty making it through the normal day's tasks with this cloud of heaviness overhead, and all around. 

It's rough to function normally when the clouds dominate the sky.  We know the sun is up because we can see the world around us, but it isn't a cheerful world.  Instead it's colorless and dull, and we can't experience the warmth of the sunlight, or the brightness on the changing leaves and the sparkle of the dew in the grass.  Our surroundings become bleak, and we wonder if it ever will change.

Anyone who has appreciated the beautiful beginning or end to a day in a gorgeous sunrise or sunset will recognize that it's the sun that makes the clouds beautiful - gives them the glowing edges, the muted or brilliant colors, changing every moment to a new indescribable shade. 

Looking at it another way, though, it is often the clouds that make the sunlight more beautiful.  People like a blazing blue sky, to be sure, but there is more interest, more nuance, more play of light when there are clouds to diffuse and diffract the sun's rays.  I was privileged a few years ago to watch the sunrise on Mount Haleakala in Maui, and it was beyond amazing.  There was a thick cloud cover, and the play of light was like a symphony.  Sunrise from the same spot without cloud cover would have been much less splendid.  Although we revel in the brilliance of a sunny day, who hasn't thrilled to the moment on a cloudy day when the light breaks through an opening and spills over the autumnal landscape to brighten a patch of trees, while all around is shadowed?   Without the clouds, that light shaft would lose its poetry.  Without the clouds, there would be no "sun dogs" (rainbows in the clouds).  Without the clouds, we would not notice and treasure the light.

I have to look at my life this way, these past few weeks.  Despite the oppression and gloom, there has been light all along.  I haven't appreciated it, because it was unnoticed - the cloud cover was too thick for me to imagine the sun.  Even though I recognized its presence behind the haze, it wasn't at the forefront of my mind.  All I could see were solid banks of grey, and all I could feel was heaviness.  But sometime in the last few days, a shaft of light has pierced the murk, and spread its golden warmth over my bleak landscape.  The brilliance of the light is made much more brilliant because of the clouds which had hidden it, for a time.

Our troubles and circumstances may cause us to imagine that there is no end to the heaviness of our souls.  We wonder whether our lives haven't always been this way, with no hope of the sun in sight.  Because of the daylight (no matter what the weather), we know that the sun has risen on us, but we don't feel the warmth, or see the colors around us the way they were meant to shine.  But the clouds serve to make more beautiful the splendor of the sunlight when it finally breaks through the dimness, and we rejoice to see it. 

In the hymn "Spirit of God, descend upon my heart," (George Croly, 1854) my favorite verse is the second one:

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
No sudden rending of the veil of clay,
No angel visitant, no opening skies -
But, take the dimness of my soul away.

Thanks be to the Lion for clouds, which show his glory, and for his light which breaks the darkness, and lightens our hearts, and gives us hope. 

wb